Jun 09, 2012

An open letter to the BBC

Dear Sir,

It has been brought to my attention that a great many people, over the course of the past two days have complained about your recent coverage of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

As somebody who also didn't have an opinion at the time, but has subsequently realised there is a bandwagon there for the riding, I would like to belatedly add my voice to the growing number of opinions which have only come to light since an initial smattering of complaints gained a thankfully disproportionate amount of publicity. (If this letter would be better directed to your self-fulfilling prophecy department I trust you will be able to forward it internally.)

First a confession: not only did I not have an opinion about your coverage at the time, I didn't even watch it.

However, in the wake of such a public outpouring of opportunism I am not going to let that stop me joining in now and will instead base my feedback on about four minutes of coverage which has been singled out by the Daily Mail and the Telegraph. I will then imagine some thoughts I think I probably would have had at the time, had I been watching.

To begin, I would like to say that I think it is unforgivable that you failed to make five hours of an old lady waving at some boats more exciting. I wonder if you even considered for a minute swapping the boats, or the old lady, or making the whole procession a little shorter? I rather fear you didn't. As for the rain, I am sure in hindsight you agree that ruined much of the spectacle for everybody.

I am honestly not sure what you were thinking.

Furthermore, I am reliably informed that Fearne Cotton, a disc jockey from Radio 1, had the temerity to discuss some of the stranger jubilee merchandise available, including - and please forgive my language - a sick bag.

I for one am one of the "Great British viewing public" who were "upset" by this segment and the blatant attempt to inject some levity into such a soporofic event. Or at least I would have been had I been watching at the time:

I am really not sure what you were thinking employing somebody such as Cotton. There might have been children watching.

In fact, if you're not careful you're going to risk opening up such events in the future to a populous far removed from the tiny minority of people who have been moved to voice their discontent on this occasion.

Which brings us onto the accusation of 'dumbing down'. I am staggered that you eschewed the rich potential for high brow analysis of soggy monarchists standing in the rain waving tacky plastic flags at a stranger. This disregard for the intellectual highground was repeated the following day when you treated the generic pop concert as little more than a generic pop concert.

However, most insulting in all of this is the subsequent announcement that you will be launching a review of your coverage.

You really do think this is all about you don't you?

Has it not crossed your mind that actually the 2,400 complaints you initially received equated to little more than 0.015 per cent of the viewing audience?

Yet you are launching a review. Get over yourself. The fact so few people have been moved to complain actually tells you nothing about your coverage and everything about the impossible task of trying to be all things to all people.

Finally, I would like to say, thank goodness for the Daily Mail and The Telegraph who have been a rock through all this scandal, ensuring people such as myself who missed the coverage completely were kept informed as to which bits we were meant to find offensive. Without them, I rather worry the whole thing would have passed unnoticed. It is good to know they are there watching out for us. I suspect if a BBC documentary series hit upon a cure for breast cancer The Telegraph would be the only newspaper brave enough to point out your apparent obsession with breasts, while I am confident the Daily Mail would be on hand to point out that the second person cured would be little more than yet another BBC repeat.

Yours belatedly,

Will Sturgeon

PS. Absolutely loved Frozen Planet and can't wait for the new series of The Thick Of It.

PPS. You can expect a strongly worded letter from me about the whole Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand thing in the next few days.

Comments

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The plan for how to cover the pageant was deeply flawed and taking the piss out of the people who watched it and felt let down doesn't help!!! I for one hope the BBC takes the complaints seriously. If 2400 people complain it means there's a really large body of unhappy people, much larger than the number who actually voiced a concern. I work for the BBC and I'm ashamed that the corporation seems not to be taking the issue seriously as there are real concerns to address. Nearly everyone (about 50 people) that i have spoken to was really fed up with the lack of coverage of the actual pageant event in favour of mock coronations, baby births and cake making. None of them made a formal complaint. I suppose it just depends what you were expecting. I would have liked to have seen the wonderful music boats, the church bells answering the belfry boat, the avenue of sail etc. None of which were shown. This kind of puerile "analysis" doesn't help.